Sharing The Cost Of Urban Life

February 08, 1992

Leaders of six distressed Connecticut municipalities held a press briefing recently to dramatize the plight of their communities. The problems of urban centers belong to all citizens of the state, they said, and cities need fiscal relief. The leaders are going to the governor and Legislature for immediate help and a long-term structure of support.

Neither will be easy, considering the governor's austerity budget.

During the go-go years of the 1980s, downtowns boomed, neighborhoods were gentrified and people tended to forget about the cities' serious underlying problems. Hard times may force cities to unite for help, says Mayor Carrie Saxon Perry of Hartford, one of the six top elected officials on the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities' distressed cities task force.

Here are some painful facts: More than 70 percent of Connecticut's AFDC recipients live in just 9 urban communities. Nearly half of the 170,000 crimes reported in Connecticut in 1990 occurred in only 7 municipalities. For most urban areas, more than 9 percent of the population is in public housing (almost 25 percent in Hartford).

More than ever, cities and even some towns, such as Windham, have become carriers of their regions' welfare and social service load. It is a role they can't afford.

Cities increasingly can't pay their operating expenses. To increase property taxes is to drive out more homeowners and businesses, which shoulder a heavy tax burden. Finally, a great deal of property is tax exempt.

City leaders say they don't want handouts; they want the financial help that would be possible .5from restructuring. For example, cities are burdened with regional obligations without being fairly compensated for them. Fairness, the leaders say, would require the state's absorbing the cities' share of welfare costs. But Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.'s budget goes the other way. It calls on the cities to assume a heavier share of welfare costs.

If a city could transfer to the state responsibility for maintaining roads, bridges, and sewers used by citizens of an entire region, it would save local dollars and the result would be fair. The same logic applies to some libraries, train stations and

parks.

The task force also wants the state to eliminate several costly mandates imposed on local government. Here, Mr. Weicker has said yes. That is a fair goal. The most obvious examples are mandates on salaries for municipal employees and teachers.

Another reform the distressed municipalities are looking at is an alternative revenue source: local sales or payroll taxes or even personal property taxation on colleges and hospitals. These approaches may cause more flight from cities, however. A better alternative would be to create regional taxing authorities to pay for infrastructure and social needs.

In the short run, a state government that is struggling to stay even is going to be asked to come up with $200 million in relief and aid for economic development.

The cities will be lucky to get half that from the Legislature. Indeed, Mr. Weicker proposes a $176 million cut in aid to municipalities. The state would be foolish to ignore the urban tragedy. And suburbs must own up to their responsibilities.